Traditional wooden drumsticks are often used to play “rimshots”, a rimshot being performed by simultaneously striking a drum head with the tip of a drumstick, while also striking the rim of the drum with the side of the drumstick, resulting in a desirable accented drum sound. The rimshot portion of a drumstick is the portion of the drumstick that comes into contact with the rim during a rimshot, which is generally the middle region along the shaft of the drumstick. Repeated impact of the shaft with the rim of the drum causes damage to the rimshot portion, including chipping, fraying, and splintering of the wood of the shaft.
Donohoe, U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,718 teaches a polymer sleeve embedded in a channel milled into the shaft, the polymer sleeve having greater resistance to rimshot damage than the wood of the shaft. However, the method of fabrication involves wood milling steps that narrow the shaft, thereby weakening it, and changing the balance and “feel” of the drumstick. Then, injection molding is used to apply molten fiberglass-filled nylon polymer so as to form a structure that covers the rimshot area of the drumstick. The balance and feel of the drumstick is thereby further altered from the desirable “wooden feel” of a traditional wooden drumstick, also resulting in an unfavorable sound when the polymer sleeve strikes the rim when performing rimshots.